


What did you do?

by CanadianSnow (ShelbyCelina)



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Bittersweet, M/M, Post-Canon, Vampire Turning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 06:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5816896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShelbyCelina/pseuds/CanadianSnow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Baz never wanted this for Simon.</p><p>Simon never listened, was never one to let something slip him by. He had spent too long missing, too long not having good things. If Baz wouldn't do it for him, then he would find another way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What did you do?

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on the fence about the whole would Baz turn Simon question. Part of me thinks yes, but part of me thinks no because he hates being a vampire, and I don't think he would want that for Simon. So this is a random little possible scenario!

He was twenty-three when I left.

“Baz, don’t do this, _please_.”

_Please._

The word is forever burned into my brain in his anguished voice. I can’t hear please without hearing him. I never say it anymore. Every muscle in my body aches when I hear someone else say it.

He begged me. I broke him.

I had to.

He didn’t understand.

“I’ll be better, _please_.”

He made promises.

“I’ll stop chewing with my mouth open, _please_!”

He bargained.

He thought it was him. It wasn’t. Crowley, it would never be him. It would always be me. I was the problem. Me and my fucking vampirism.

He was twenty-three.

It wasn’t like he looked old. But in the few years since Watford he had lost the boyish charm to his face. He was undeniably beautiful still— even more so. But his jaw had become a sharp line, his hair was kept shorter, neater, and faint lines had appeared around his eyes and mouth from laughing. I could see the changes on him, the changes I knew wouldn’t happen to me. I was still the same. I didn’t understand how it worked— aging, dying, being a vampire— but I knew everything would be slower for me. I knew at some point he would start to look _too_ old. I knew at some point he would notice. And I knew what he would ask me to do, just as he knew I wouldn’t. I never would.

It was easier to leave sooner. Give him time to heal, to move on, to have a life. I disappeared. I was untraceable. I made sure of it, because I knew he would be looking.

I left a note for Bunce. _Make him move on._ That was all it said. I still regret that note. Fuck, do I regret that note. _Make him move on_ made me sound like a narcissist. It made me look like a pompous idiot who made assumptions about Simon's heart. Like I was his great love and he would never get over it. He was mine. It didn't mean I was his. And that was all I left— the assumption that I was his great love and the knowledge that I left thinking that, knowing it would destroy him. It made me more than a narcissist. It made me a fucking arsehole.

I came back after two years. I looked for him. I wasn't going to let him see me. I just wanted to make sure he was okay. I didn’t deserve to know. But I’ve always been selfish and weak. I had to make sure.

I found Penny.

I didn’t find Simon.

I followed her around the city. I watched as she went about her day, and the entire time I wondered why she hadn't seen Simon yet. Why their paths, always so intertwined, hadn't crossed. At some point I realized she knew I was behind her. We carried on for a few more hours, walking in the same direction, pausing when the other paused. I felt like we were sharing a secret, sharing all that had transpired in the last two years. It was an odd comfort. Finally, as she was walking through the park to campus her movements changed. I knew she was about to tell me something. She stopped, and we both stood facing away from one another as people streamed around us.

“He’s gone," her voice barely carried over the wind, over the sounds of the city. But I heard her, as she knew I would. I wanted to reach out, to ask for more, but I waited. I still didn't have the right to demand answers. She continued, "I haven’t seen him in months. I don’t know where he is. If you find him, tell me, tell me he is okay— _please_.”

And then she walked away, leaving her words clinging desperately to the air around me. He was gone, and I couldn't help but feel it was my fault.

It turns out I wasn’t the only one who could disappear.

Each year that went by without finding him left me more confused. It wasn’t like Simon to run, it especially wasn’t like him to leave Penny. Every year I checked in on her. I would follow her like the first time and she would eventually stop and talk to the air in front of her. She never turned around. Not once, and I knew why. It would be too painful to see me as I was at eighteen, knowing she lost Simon because of me. I didn't hold it against her, seeing her warm brown eyes begging for news would be too much for me to handle too. It was better this way.

“Anything?” She would ask.

“No. You?” I would counter.

She always had something. Usually a note in his unmistakable messy handwriting. Sometimes it was _I’m sorry_. Sometimes it was _I miss you_. And once it was _Thinking of you always_. Nothing more. I tried to pretend like it didn't hurt me that he never left anything for me. Where was my _I miss you_. It didn't matter that I didn't deserve it. I still wanted it. Above all, I didn't understand. I didn’t get how he could disappear so completely, how even _I_ couldn’t find him. Simon was a lot of things, but abandoning people was never him. He knew how much it hurt to be left behind.

The day before I turned thirty-eight I found him. I didn’t look or feel thirty-eight (I was right about the aging). I found him in Hawaii of all fucking places.

Mordelia was getting married. People from outside the family thought I was her younger brother. We started telling people I was. Friends of the family assumed I was experimenting in Dark Magic. That I was vain and trying to preserve my age. I was drunk and rolling my eyes as another idiotic cousin whispered to me that the Coven would throw me in jail if they knew I was using immortality spells. It took all of my control not to snort in his face about the prospect of jail. Jail was a joke. Forget using Dark Magic, they would burn me if they knew I was a _vampire_. 

After endless hours of the same conversation I had given Mordelia a quick kiss and told her I was going to bed. She laughed, gave me a bottle of champagne and told me to have some fun.

 _Fun_.

What a stupid word. Fun had not been part of my life for fifteen years.

I stumbled across the beach and drank champagne straight from the bottle. I hated Hawaii. Everyone here was happy and in love. It made me feel sick. I sat down in the sand and fell onto my back. I hated everything. I was bitter. And I hated that too.

My thoughts, as always, went to Simon— _where the fuck did he go? How could he just leave?_

I hated him.

I loved him.

I hated him for still loving him.

“Fuck you, Simon.” I yelled it up at the stars, like they would listen and understand.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was _never_ supposed to be like this.

I was still cursing into the night air when I heard someone approaching. At first it was just footsteps. Someone likely coming to tell me I couldn’t drink on the beach, or to tell me I should learn to respect the ocean and the stars. I was ready for a fight. I hoped they would take a swing at me, so I could take one back. I had my snarl ready, my lips already curled in anger.

I sat up and glared at the intruder.

I fell back down to earth.

_How fucking drunk was I?_

I sat back up again. He had stopped walking.

“Baz?”

That voice.

 _Nope_.

I fell back against the sand and closed my eyes tightly. What a fucking rubbish dream. I hadn’t dreamt of Simon like that in years. Dreams so real I was sure I could reach out and touch him. But, I always knew it was a dream because he always looked the same; twenty-three years old, a sharp jaw, shorter hair, blue eyes.

“Baz?”

Feet shuffled towards me.

“Are you okay?”

I refused to open my eyes. I didn’t say anything. I was sure it was a dream. It had to be.

“Baz? Look at me, _please_.”

That word.

I looked.

I closed my eyes again.

“Fuck off,” I hissed. Or slurred. More likely slurred.

He laughed.

That laugh. That honeyed laugh.

“Baz. It’s me.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Not possible.”

“Baz. It’s Simon.”

“ _Simon_.”

He dropped to his knees beside me. I opened my eyes and it was him. Beautiful. Brazen hair. Undoubtedly Simon Snow. Except he was pale. Worryingly pale. I sat up quickly and felt my stomach turn. He was smiling at me, his white teeth gleaming in the night.

" _Baz_.” He said firmly.

My eyes grew wide.

I pinched myself.

It hurt.

He noticed.

“This is _real_ , Baz.”

I reached out a shaky hand and touched the side of his face. He closed his eyes and exhaled.

"I missed you.”

How long had I been waiting to hear those words?

His cheek was cold under my fingers. I traced the outline of his jaw. He still had his moles, and his freckles, and his eyes were still just blue. I tried to convince myself of something else. _Anything_ else. Like maybe the whole time he was missing he had been living in Alaska, and his skin temperature was now permanently changed because of it. That he was pale because Alaska has less sun. I even tried to convince myself that people who lived in Alaska just didn’t age the same.

Crowley, I was an idiot.

I knew as soon as I heard his heart. It was so much slower from the last time I heard it, the pattern different.

It all started to make sense. Penny would have killed him. I would have killed him. And neither of us would have let him.

“ _Simon_. What did you do?” I croaked out. He opened his eyes, but he didn't answer; he didn't have to. It hurt to look at him. To know the truth. My beautiful Simon was, without a doubt, irreversibly dead— as dead as me. 

"Where were you." I hissed.

He bit his lower lip. They were still pink, but barely. Not the same bubblegum pink they used to be.

"I wanted to give you time. I knew you would be angry.”

"I've been looking for you.”

"I know.”

"You knew?”

He kept his gaze steady on mine. It was off-putting. His eyes were still so _alive, alive, alive_. It didn't match the rest of him.

"Yes. I was waiting for the right time.”

I snorted. I almost hated him for real in that moment. For what he did. For what he put Penny through. For what Penny was going to go through when she found out.

"There is no right time for _this_.”

"I know. I'm sorry.”

I glared at him. I had nothing left to say. We stared at each other for too long. Having the conversations we missed in the last fifteen years. We stared long enough for the anger inside of me to start to crack. I am not sure who started crying first. I noticed the tears on his cheeks the same time I felt them on my own. I could never hate him, even if I wanted to.

“We match.” He whispered carefully as he leaned forward and placed his forehead to mine.

“I _never_ wanted this for you.” I cried.

“But I did. I always did.”

My stomach lurched and I turned away to throw up in the sand. I kept throwing up. I emptied everything out of me. He reached a cautious hand to my hair and pushed it back. My skin remembered. Remembered how nice it was to be comforted by Simon Snow. It betrayed how I wanted to feel, because his fingers brushing gently through my hair made my entire body feel alive for the first time in years. Crowley, I missed him.

"It's all right, darling," he said against me. "I'm here. I'm yours. I've _always_ been yours.”

_Simon. Simon. Simon. Simon._

When I finally stopped throwing up he lifted my face to his. He smiled and I saw the sharpness of his canines.

“Oh, Simon, love. What did you do?”

The tears pressed against the back of my eyes again.

“What you wouldn’t," he whispered before pressing cool lips to mine.

 


End file.
